


cutting through all the years

by AppleJuiz



Series: cutting through [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dealing With Trauma, F/M, Past Sokka/Yue (Avatar), Post-Canon, Sokka (Avatar)-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25520233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AppleJuiz/pseuds/AppleJuiz
Summary: Loving Suki is fun and easy and wonderful. She makes him sharper and smarter and better. She picks him apart to learn him on the inside, underneath warpaint and brave faces, and she drags him along with her so that they both can discover this person he is.Falling in love with her is learning to fly without Appa, is breathing underwater without Katara, is learning that more things are boomerangs than he thought, to not fear letting them go, to trust that they will come back when he needs them.
Relationships: Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Series: cutting through [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1840132
Comments: 16
Kudos: 151





	cutting through all the years

**Author's Note:**

> Guess I’m not done with this series yet. Sokka’s POV of the last part but also just a general deep dive into Sokka and grief. Enjoy!

Once upon a time Sokka falls in love with a princess. A princess who is betrothed to another man, marked by a spirit, loyal to her people above all else. If he fell in love any slower maybe he would have seen the warning signs. But instead he falls fast, and she nobly and bravely dies and a part of him dies with her. He wishes it was the part that fell in love with her, but it isn’t. He wishes it was the part of him that believed in fairytales, but that part went a long time ago. 

Once upon a time, shortly after, Sokka tries to fall in love with the moon. He sits up at night and talks to her. Some nights he asks for a sign, begs for anything in response. He doesn’t know how spirit stuff works but he tries and he waits and he tries. Like most long distance relationships, it doesn’t work out. 

Once upon a time, Sokka falls in love with a warrior. A warrior who is a girl too, who smiles crookedly and blushes easily and laughs sweetly. She protects him, not because she has to or because she can but because she wants to, and that makes all the difference. She protects him, she protects herself, she protects his friends, strangers, animals, hope. She gets captured and locked away in a tower, and he’s scared that he’ll be too late, but he finds her again. And together they escape, two warriors side by side. They save the world and live happily ever after, the end. 

He likes that story better. He's a bit of a sucker for a happy ending. 

.

Loving Yue hurt, almost the whole time. It felt like sprinting straight at a wall of ice. It kept him up at night, before and after, loving and hurting, tossing and turning. It made him wonder why anyone would ever want to feel this way. 

And just as he decided that he never wanted to feel that way ever again, that maybe love wasn’t meant for him at all, not in this war that takes and takes, there’s Suki. He doesn’t even have the time to tell himself that he shouldn’t fall in love with her because by the time he realizes it he already has. It feels like holding onto the side of a too tall cliff and fighting gravity, fighting the inevitable fall. And then she takes his hand and shows him that they can fly, and that if he starts to fall she’ll catch him. 

Loving Suki is fun and easy and wonderful. She makes him sharper and smarter and better. She picks him apart to learn him on the inside, underneath warpaint and brave faces, and she drags him along with her so that they both can discover this person he is. 

Falling in love with her is learning to fly without Appa, is breathing underwater without Katara, is learning that more things are boomerangs than he thought, to not fear letting them go, to trust that they will come back when he needs them. 

He falls in love with Suki in tents and in prisons and on war ships. He falls in love with her as they sneak away to make out at the Western Air Temple, on Ember Island, at Zuko’s coronation. 

(“You make me nervous,” she whispers against his mouth, under the stars at the edges of the Western Air Temple, as far away from everyone else as they can get. 

“I make you nervous?” he repeats, gesturing to the whole of her. She rolls her eyes and lets her forehead drop to his shoulder. 

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” she says, her fingertips trailing up his back. He makes another noise to convey just how ridiculous a statement that is when she is here, the most amazing person he’s ever met. “I’ve never felt this way about someone.”

And he realizes that he hasn’t either. Not in this way, not like he feels about her.

“I’m scared, too,” he says. Scared of the war, scared of how for everything he loses he keeps loving things more and more. Scared like he was on the eclipse, being pulled at by Azula like he was a puppet, when he first had the thought that he’s cursed, doomed to love hard and fast and lose it every time. 

She pulls back and gives him a wild look. “I never said I was scared,” she says and kissing him again like she’s taking a dive.)

(“Can I?” she asks, when they’re out on the beach at midnight, her hand hovering over the hem of his tunic. 

And he breathes for a moment, mouth drifting back to hers without thinking, finding its place and rhythm too easily. The tips of her hair brush across his cheeks and block out the moonlight. 

“Yes,” he says when he remembers to and it’s such a wonderful word to say and hear over the soft hum of the waves and their heavy breathing. Her hand slips across his skin and it feels like the universe is saying yes too.)

(“Wait,” she says in an abandoned bedroom in the Fire Nation palace while he’s kissing her neck and she’s running her calloused hands through his hair. 

He pulls back to check in and loses his breath at the way she’s staring up at him.

“Are you okay?” he asks. She reaches up, tracing a line from his temple to his cheek. She nods and smiles and he realizes that yeah, she’s okay. He’s okay. They’re okay.)

And then one night he wakes up and looks over at her, watches her breathe steadily. Her hair is fanned out across the pillow. Her chest rises and falls, her leg twitches, her arm is reaching for him. The moonlight is draped over her like a blanket, an actual blanket is draped over her, her foot sticking out from under it because she hates to get too hot. 

He realizes that he doesn’t fall in love with her every time he sees her anymore. He’s just staying in love with her, and that’s a new feeling that is somehow better, more exhilarating, more unbelievable. It’s not flying anymore, it’s coming in for a steady landing, finding himself on solid ground, Suki next to him, in a new beautiful land they get to explore. 

He settles back down next to her and kisses her forehead before closing his eyes again. 

And he stays in love with her when he wakes up the next morning and they’re bathed in golden sunlight and she yawns right in his face when he moves to kiss her. 

He stays in love with her when they’re on opposite sides of the world, sending letters weekly with updates and jokes and sappy mush that makes him blush and makes Katara mime gagging. He stays in love with her for every joyful reunion and every bittersweet goodbye kiss. 

He loves her and she turns to him one shared day that he’s visiting Kyoshi Island and says, “I’m tired of this.”

His heart beats steady and unafraid, secure in her and them, still on that solid ground and trusting her to keep them there. 

“What do you want?” he asks.

“I want to be where you are,” she says, a little amazed, like she just realized it herself. She turns to him and smiles softly, raises her eyebrows like she’s challenging him. 

“Well, good, because I want to be where you are.”

The sun is setting and the island is a calm pink orange like the very first time they fought together, when she kissed his cheek and he saw her and understood something about her and something about himself. 

“Where to first then?” she asks and they end up laying buried in the tall grass, kissing until the stars come out. 

.

They do this dance across the map for a long while, together more than they’re apart, bouncing between their friends, between nations, between adventures. The world is different when he’s next to her. He goes to places he’s been before but it’s all new. 

In some ways the world is literally different, changing because the war is over, and they take it in and exchange proud looks because they kinda did this, they kinda helped save the world. There’s still a little hostility in some of the smaller Fire Nation towns, especially when he walks around in his Water Tribe blues. They run into a particularly aggressive guard in one village who refuses them access to the local market. Katara isn’t with them and they’re tired so it’s easy to decide it isn’t worth it and turn around and find somewhere else. 

But then the guard mutters something under his breath about, “water savages.”

Before Sokka can even flinch Suki has pulled his sword right off his back and is strutting back over to the guard. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that,” she says, a dangerously sharp sweet. “What exactly did you want to say to the ambassador of the Southern Water Tribe?”

Which is technically his official title, even if he shares the role with Katara and even if Zuko had made the official declaration in the middle of the night when they were all more than a little drunk. 

She points the sword loosely at the guard, more of a show of force than an actual threat. Sokka hurries over anyway to hover at her elbow. 

“Or you know, if you have concerns you’d like to send directly to the Fire Lord, I’d be happy to pass a message along.”

The guard doesn’t seem to want to back down, hand drifting to his own weapon. “Maybe I do.”

Suki rocks back onto her heels, glancing back at him conspiratorially. “Should I take notes or do you want to?”

The guard clenches his teeth and yanks his blade out. Suki doesn’t even bother looking back at the guard, just flashes Sokka a grin, adjusts her grip on his sword and disarms the guard in two quick swings, tripping him for good measure. 

“Run?” Sokka asks when the guard hits the ground. He’s smiling so wide his cheeks hurt. 

Suki shrugs. “Probably,” she says. “But we should talk to Zuko about diplomatic immunity.”

She hands him the sword and takes his hand and they go dashing off.

“You didn’t have to,” he says later, when they find a comfortable alley to crash in while they wait to meet up with Aang and Katara again. 

“What? Defend your honor?” she asks. “What kind of girl do you take me for?”

He shakes his head. “I love you.”

She throws her arms around his neck and drags him down for a kiss. “I know you do.”

.

Other places though are better than ever. He takes her home to the tribe, overwhelmed with nerves the whole trip south. Katara almost throws him off Appa with how he keeps shaking his leg. 

He worries for nothing. Suki fits in just fine, as charming and wonderful as ever. She doesn’t take to the cold at all, piling parkas and unable to leave bed without a thick blanket. Her nose goes red almost immediately whenever she steps outside, and it’s adorable every single time. She catches a cold, sniffles and sneezes through their first week, but it turns out to be the quickest way to endear her to Gran Gran who starts making her soups three times a day and sewing her some extra blankets. 

He shows Suki where the watchtower used to be, where the best snow drifts are, the old Fire Navy ship, the place where they found Aang, his old training grounds. She asks about everything he doesn’t mention, customs and traditions and histories, holds onto the knowledge with a reverence and respect that he drowns in. 

One morning, a month in, he wakes up to an empty bed and finds her a half hour later outside, surrounded by some of the little kids of the tribe, showing off her fans and some different moves. The kids are more entertained by the fact that she’s an outsider and that the fans are shiny than they are by the actual lesson, but he sits to watch her with his eyes shining. 

They do all the romantic things he used to fantasize about as a kid, sitting on the wall at night to watch the stars, taking a boat down the river to the inset lake, going spear-fishing in the early morning. He discovers new ones that he hadn’t even considered before, Suki sticking her hands in his pockets wherever they go, making flying lemurs in the fresh snow, finding ways to keep each other warm all night. 

He remembers what it felt like to think he’d live here for the rest of his life, to know nothing of the world outside of this place except that it was a world with teeth that could take everything from him. He didn’t even know it was a world that had Suki.

He feels different at home, laid bare for her. He knows how she comes into focus sometimes, when they’re on Kyoshi Island and something reminds her of her past. Out traveling, they carry their scars inside themselves. At home, pieces of them are littered everywhere. 

“Her name was Yue,” he starts, one night sitting out in the snow in front of a fire. It’s an easier talk, because while the snow and the ice makes him think of Yue, there’s still a world of distance between him and the North Pole. 

Suki holds his hand while he tells the story, and nods in all the right spots and kissing his cheek when he finishes. He doesn’t feel heartbroken about it anymore. He’s still sad, sad that a wonderful girl with an amazing heart had to sacrifice everything and he couldn’t do anything to help her. And it still aches a little, and he thinks it always will. But he’s home and the world is safe and the moon shines bright. 

Suki squeezes his hand. “Kyoshi has a saying that to be a true warrior you have to offer protection at the very expense of yourself. She died a warrior’s death.” Her eyes are up on the moon, like some private conversation is happening between them. He only feels a little nervous about it. She turns to him and runs her hand over his shoulder and kisses him solidly. 

It’s a good night. 

.

It’s in the middle of the day though, when they find themselves a quiet corner of the village to sit down and have lunch. He watches some of the women pass by, chatting brightly with each other and his heart pounds a little warning to pull back, but he doesn’t. 

“My mother’s name was Kya,” he says. He looks at her and finds her looking back at him steadily, and has to duck his head away. She knows, already, that his mother died, that his father went off to war shortly after, that he was the last warrior left in the Southern Water Tribe before his voice even dropped. The same way he knows that her father left when she was a baby, that her mother was the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors, that she sat in on trainings her whole life until her mother put her first fans in her hands at 8 and died in battle three months later. “Her hair was darker than Katara’s, as dark as mine. I forget the rest of what she looked like. I remember that she would sing us lullabies before bed even when we said we were too old. She could always tell when I didn’t wash my face before bed. She took us penguin sledding whenever my dad was out hunting.”

The words keep coming so he keeps letting them into the air and Suki is right there with him through it. He looks over at one point and sees that she’s crying, silent tears tracking down her cheeks. And something about that makes the knot in his chest unfurl, like it’s tangible proof that she’s right there with him, carrying the weight of everything he’s saying, taking it on herself too. He brushes her cheeks with his mitten clad hands and gives her a smile that he hopes says he’ll carry her too when she’s ready to share. 

“She would have loved you,” he says, and knows that it’s so true that it almost feels like it’s already happened. Suki exhales shakily and holds him tight. 

He wraps his arms around her waist, and they sit there as it starts to lightly snow. He closes his eyes and rests his forehead in the crook of her neck. 

.

The next day she goes off hunting with his dad while he stays behind to ‘help Katara with the laundry’. 

“There is no laundry,” Katara says after they leave, eyes narrowed. 

“I know,” he says, and knows the exact moment she realizes what he’s carving because she gasps. It’s actually pretty impressive that she can tell because he’s never been an artist and this is his third attempt and it’s still a terrible circle. 

“You’re-?” 

“Yep,” he says, and almost stabs himself in the shoulder with his carving knife because Katara tackles him into the snow with a hug. 

It takes another five attempts before he gets something he’s satisfied with and he has to kick Katara out because she’s being generally unhelpful, both overexcited and over critical. 

He tucks the betrothal necklace away in his bag before Suki gets back. 

“Good day?” she asks, a little sweaty, hair messy, nose still stubbornly red. 

“Eh,” he says. “It was just laundry.”

.

He’s a planner by nature but he knows he can’t plan this. It has to be natural, it has to be right. 

It’s not right at the South Pole. It’s definitely not right when they’re at the North Pole. It’s not right when they’re visiting Toph, or visiting Iroh, or visiting Zuko. 

It’s almost right when they’re in some fight and the battle ends and they turn to each other, tired and wild. 

Katara keeps giving him looks. And then Aang does so he knows she told him. And then Toph does and he knows Aang told her. And then they’re all giving him looks when Suki's distracted and Zuko watches them and raises his eyebrows. 

“What?” he asks and Suki turns back to them and they all glance off in different directions. 

“I’m gonna kill you,” he tells Katara and for once she actually looks guilty for it. 

Zuko is still watching and waiting for an explanation, and Aang shrugs innocently. And then the next morning Zuko smiles at him and pats him on the shoulder and so he knows too. 

“I’m sorry,” Katara says. “But this wouldn’t be a problem if you actually did it.”

“Did what?” Suki asks as she comes into the room, stretching and making a beeline for the pot of tea Zuko made. 

“Uh,” Katara squeaks. 

“Hey, Suki, look at this new trick!” Aang says like he’s twelve again, tossing some cups in the air and juggling them above his head.

“Very cool,” she says, and takes a cup from Zuko, kissing Sokka in the cheek when she passes to sit down. And they look at him again and he’s going to kill them all. 

.

So they all keep looking and he keeps waiting, because he’s gotta do it right and he wants to take him time to make it right. 

And then she almost dies. 

He doesn’t see when she gets stabbed, he doesn’t see her fall. He sees her hit the ground and not get up and something deep in him gives out. 

He forgot. That time is not a guarantee, that war is not the only thing that can take, that love can hurt and he is cursed and warriors protect but just as often die. 

It’s his fault and he knows it. As he holds her while she bleeds and gasps for air. As he helps Katara with shaky numb hands as his sister tries to heal her. 

He let himself get comfortable. He let himself forget. He got so caught up in the rightness of being with her and being in love, thinking that the sappy sentiments and ways he proved that they were perfect somehow protected them. 

If she dies, he thinks with a cold quiet clarity. That’s it. 

That would be it for him. He would be done. Because even though he’s had practice, he would not survive losing her. Not now. Not after everything. Not after years with her, not after the South Pole, not with a betrothal necklace in his pack that he's had for too long now. Not when it’s his fault. 

Suki takes a gasping breath after seconds of terrible silence and Katara falls back into her heels, sighing in relief. And his heart starts to beat again, but the panic doesn’t subside. 

Never again, he promises. This is never happening again. 

.

She looks pale and small in the bed in Iroh’s apartment. She’s under some blankets but she’s flat on her back and her foot doesn’t stick out because she’s been out for hours. 

The five of them crowd the room and watch her as she comes in and out. The others reach out for him, hold his hand, touch his shoulder. 

He doesn’t leave the room that often. Iroh brings tea and food. He doesn’t leave the apartment at all until she really wakes up. He hugs his sister tight and tries not to shake apart. 

(“You’re amazing,” he says with feeling.

“I know.”)

He holds her hand and gets her water and carries her from room to room. He wants to shake his fist at the universe and say, “I’d carry her anywhere she wants to go for the rest of my life, okay? You don’t need to test me.”

She gets better and better, and keeps pushing herself to do more. And on the one hand he’s not surprised at all because he knows the girl he fell in love with. But on the other hand, he nearly bites his tongue off swallowing the million times he wants to say, “Slow down, stay in bed a little longer. Take your time. You don’t have to throw yourself back in right now, maybe you never should.”

He knows better than to say any of that to her, knows she can take care of herself and make decisions for herself. But everything in him knows this is his fault, that he is cursed, and that he should never tempt fate again. 

He convinces her to take a break, to slow down, to give him time to think. She tells him she doesn’t want to die and he thinks, Great, we’re on the same page. She trusts him to figure out what they should do now and it’s that trust that keeps him from telling her they should invest in an underground bunker and never leave. 

He comes up with a real plan for them and fastens the betrothal necklace around her neck, but the panic doesn’t stop, just churns on and on in the back of his mind. 

.

They go back to the palace and she goes back to training. She gets better and better. He keeps ignoring the thing in his head that wants to wrap her in blankets and stay in bed forever. 

He wakes up in the middle of the night to an empty bed and is disoriented enough to let the panic take hold, jumping out of bed and hurrying through the halls looking for her. He wakes up more along the way and hates himself for the panic but he can’t stop. 

He finds her outside Zuko’s room, sitting up against the wall with her head between her knees, Zuko patting her back. There’s a discarded sword and a guy sprawled out on the floor, unconscious. 

“What happened?” he asks, rushing over. Suki looks up and smiles brightly. 

“Another assassin,” Zuko says. “Which I could have handled.” He glances pointedly over at Suki. She’s out of breath but her eyes are on fire. Her pride is contagious and he meets her for a hug, but he still feels bile rising in his throat. 

“This guy tried to sneak in right past the guards’ quarters,” she explains, rolling her eyes. 

“Yes and you almost passed out after taking him down,” Zuko offers. 

“I just got a little dizzy,” she says, waving his concern off. Zuko raises his eyebrows and Sokka keeps his face very very blank. “Well, that was fun. Should we put on some tea?”

He’s happy for her and he’s proud of her but he can’t sleep for the rest of the night and it’s not because of the tea. 

.

It’s really cool being betrothed. Every time he spots her necklace it makes his heart beat steadier and makes him smile without thinking. Suki always reaches up to touch it absently, running her fingers over the carving when she’s thinking something through. 

It’s almost like the early days of their relationship, making out whenever and wherever they can. Giddy and laughing but it feels a lot heavier. Nothing has really changed between them but there’s something about explicitly saying they want to be together and having an actual physical piece of proof about it that makes everything seem so much more. More romantic, more intense, more fun. 

He kisses the fabric at her neck, her hands buried in his hair, gripping loosely. They’re squished into a corner of a long dramatic hallway, making the most of the few minutes before a boring policy meeting that Zuko is forcing them to sit through so he doesn’t have to alone. 

They don’t have a lot of time but they’re making the most of it. He kisses the skin under the necklace, kisses past the edge of her Kyoshi paint, down to her collarbone. 

She tips her head back against the wall and lets out a high gasp that sounds just like the sounds she made when she couldn’t breathe. It snaps right into his subconscious and he pulls back. 

“Are you okay?” he asks. 

She raises her eyebrows. “Uh, yeah.” She leans in to kiss his cheek even though it leaves a little red mark. “Are you?”

He nods even though his stomach is in knots. She’s fine. He presses his lips back to the place where her pulse pounds and breathes deep. 

“Guys,” Zuko says, sighing heavily from the doorway. “Really?”

Suki pushes him away playfully and tilts her head at Zuko. “You’re the one whose late.”

He follows them into the room and zones out the entire meeting. 

.

He has nightmares all the time. Nightmares of her bleeding and dying, obviously. 

But others, memories of his dad in the days after his mother’s death. The way his eyes were so far away it was like he was gone too. The way he wouldn’t get out of bed for anything. The way he would hold him and Katara too tight and wouldn’t let them leave the house without him. 

Nightmares of the eclipse, Azula taunting him, powerless but still holding all the cards. The nights after when he listed his failures every night to count himself to sleep and exploring every single implication in her words. Suki hurt, Suki tortured, Suki dead. Because of him. 

Nightmares of her trailing behind him, falling from the air ship, not coming back. 

She’s always there when he wakes up, smoothing a hand down his back, breathing against his ear, whispering reassurances. 

But every time he falls asleep again she’s choking on air, slipping away, and he is powerless to do anything. 

.

One night he wakes up screaming from a dream he forgets almost the instant he’s awake. 

Suki is there like she always is, yawning and reaching for him, but he’s not breathing heavy, not lost in a panicky haze. He’s crystal clear. 

“I thought that I was going to lose you,” he says. She blinks hazily, rubs her eyes and seems to drag herself back to focus. 

“I’m right here,” she says, hand brushing his hip. 

“I know,” he says. “But I thought you were going to die in my arms. And it was my fault.”

She shakes her head, moves closer to kiss his bare shoulder. “It was an accident. I just slipped for a second.”

“Technically yeah,” he says, because this is a very practical affair. “But I’m cursed. I’m gonna lose you.”

“You're not cursed.”

“How do you know?”

“Because that’s stupid,” she says. “Why would you be cursed? Did you anger some spirit?”

“No,” he says. “But that’s not why.”

“Then why?” 

“Because I’m not strong enough,” he says. 

“Sokka.” She raises an eyebrow. And oh yeah, right. That was his old answer. But now he knows he is strong and she’s strong and strength is subjective anyway. 

“Because I love too much or not enough, I don’t know,” he offers, burying his face in his hands. 

She sighs and wraps her arms around his waist, pressing herself against him. “You think too much.”

“I’m going to lose you,” he breathes, but clings to her anyways. 

“No you’re not,” she says. She takes his hand and draws it up to a long thin scar on her shoulder, a training accident when she was nine. Over to another one on the back of her neck, a graze from an arrow during her first mission. “I’m here, right? I can take a hit. I’m not invincible but I’m not going anywhere.”

“You almost—“

“But I didn’t,” she says. She touches her forehead to his and he goes cross eyed watching her smile. “You’re not cursed, okay? Because if there’s anything extra going on here, just look at us. In this entire world, what are the chances that you would find the Avatar? That you would even end up on Kyoshi Island? That you would be crossing through the refugee ferries during one of my shifts? That I would be taken to Boiling Rock instead of any other prison? We keep coming together. If I hadn’t fallen on the airships, I wouldn’t have been able to save your life. I survived a sword through the gut. You’re not cursed. We’re lucky.”

She brings his hand to her abdomen. Her skin is warm and soft, and he can feel where the scar is raised. 

“Oh,” he says, because he's crunching the numbers and it looks like she’s right once again. She shifts forward, her hand on the back of his neck, and brushes her mouth over his. 

Once upon a time, Sokka lays back down in bed with his betrothed and kisses her as moonlight spills through the window. There’s no great three act structure or lesson to learn. It’s not a fairytale, it’s not magic. He just realizes that he’s the luckiest person in the world to be here with her at all.

**Author's Note:**

> As always let me know what you think! And let me know if you want to see more of this series. Thanks for reading!


End file.
